i guess im just trying to figure out why everyone else has the m10000 when you can spend an extra $22 and get something just as small, and better, and upgradable (cpu).

It does seem silly to go with an Epia, when you look at it from a cost vs. performance perspective. Yes, they are pathetically slow for the given clock speed. Any other 1ghz chip is most likely twice as fast. But the real reasons people love them are because of their extremely low power consumption, smal size, decent onbaord everything, and of course they give off very little heat to deal with. They will run off less than a 100w psu, I've seen complete computers in a 1 din space using them, and they can be passively cooled ( no fans ). So whichever you choose, each solution has their merits, but the epia is the simplest and most suited to being in a car.

I asked the very same question a while back. Now everyone that I tell about my EPIA system asks why I would do that instead of putting a "normal" PC in my car. (Many ask why put a PC in a car at all. But I ignore those people. They just don't get it.)

Here's the reasons IMO: (no flames, please, this is just my opinion)
1) Power Consumption - the M10000 is low power, and by using laptop components and a couple USB devices I can have a fully functional system that operates at a very low power level.
2) Low Heat - With low power, comes low heat. Low heat means less fans & even less power consumption. Also with low heat, I can stuff the PC in places that you normally couldn't because of lack of ventilation.
3) Low Noise - with low heat, and barely any fans, you get low noise. That's not as important in a car, but in home theater/entertainment that's important. Who knows, I may get stuck in traffic and watch a movie! Or be sitting at a meet and watch the news. And I won't have to hear the buzz of my desktop PC's fans over top of the whispers and subtle audio of the movie.
4) Small Form Factor - you can stuff this PC just about anywhere. Often people are making DIN sized PC's. You can't do that with an Athlon XP and GeForce 5900. My car is a subcompact, and doesn't have room for much in it, except for me and a passenger. So I need a PC that will fit somewhere out of the way.
5) Looks great - my install will go under my driver's seat. You won't see the PC at all, unless your looking for change between the seats. Even the LCD will be retractable into the dash, so thieves are not attracted to my car (as much). I could park my car on the dealer's lot and you'd have a hard time picking it out from the other unmodified ones.
6) No worries about stuff in the trunk - A lot of standard PC's in cars end up in the trunk. I don't care for that, since that's where I keep my tools and various other things that can't be rolling around with the passengers. I don't want them banging up my PC, so I don't want my PC in the trunk.
7) Excellent components included - with the exception of the on-board video, the M10000 has great included components. LAN, USB2, Firewire, 5.1 Audio, Hardware MPEG Decoding, etc. I don't care for the on-board video (except the hard-MPEG decoder). S3 has always made lack-luster performers for VGA chipsets. The M10000 is no exception. But you have to ask yourself: How many times will I be playing 3D games on this machine? For me, the answer is likely never. So the M10000 is perfect.

I know that various people here have overcome everyone of the things I talked about above with a "standard" PC installation. That's great. Kudos to them for the good planning and engineering. I just don't want to be bothered. I've pounded enough square pegs into round holes in my life. Why make another?

Now if you want to have one PC that you can carry from the house to the car and it will do everything in both places, the M10000 is not a good choice. Shuttle makes a great PC. I personally had my eye on using the MN31N board before I came across the EPIA M10000. You could take their small form factor case and add a serious VGA card, a normal size hard drive and DVD drive and have a monster system.

What you really have to ask yourself is what am I going to do with this computer? Mine will be used for street navigation (GPS), MP3 audio, mobile television, wireless networking (work & home), DVD movies, emulated games, email on the road, music swapping with friends. I won't be playing Quake or Raven's Shield on it. I won't be typing Word doc's on it. I won't be printing. I won't be chatting online.

So what do you want your PC to do? It can do anything that a desktop can do. You just have to pick the right hardware.

If its size, then go with one of the mentioned. I would love to have a m10000, but i cant afford it right now. I just got a elitegroup K7SOM+ that im happy with. http://www.ecs.com.tw/products/pd_sp...product_id=317
they are larger (micro-atx), takes more power but got onboard cpu, usb2, lan, vga, lpt+serial. All i need, and they are cheaper than the others i've seen

Ok if I only want to do GPS, DVD/Divx, Web, Mp3, OBD2 and sometime WordProcess, does the M10000N have the power to handle like 2 things at once (GPS & MP3 or Web & MP3) except DVD? I defenitely don't want the car computer to be use as a game machine for 3D graphic intensive games.
If the M10000N can't do the job, I will go with Celeron and Micro ATX MB.
So which one should I get?

I would like to thank everyone for their responses to the topic (especially Tom)!! There are so many choices and i just dont want to make the wrong one. I think i may end up going with the shuttle just because i can either use the case, or take out the mobo and psu and make a custom case and shrink it down. I think the epia may be a little underpowered and i dont want to upgrade for a while, otherwise, it would be the perfect mobo. Thanks again!

Ok if I only want to do GPS, DVD/Divx, Web, Mp3, OBD2 and sometime WordProcess, does the M10000N have the power to handle like 2 things at once (GPS & MP3 or Web & MP3) except DVD? I defenitely don't want the car computer to be use as a game machine for 3D graphic intensive games.
If the M10000N can't do the job, I will go with Celeron and Micro ATX MB.
So which one should I get?

Matrix:
I can't say for certain, because my EPIA M10000's not installed yet. It's sitting on the dining room table. I can say that I've noticed very little difference between it and my normal PC that I use for 3D gaming (Athlon XP 1500 with 512Mb RAM). I say that while I'm surfing the web, listening to MP3's, and generally screwing around - NOT playing 3D games. The EPIA multitasks just fine. I've been listening to MP3's while surfing with 10 or so windows open - no problem.

I did notice that MS Updates for WinXP take a long time to load. A lot longer than my normal PC, but that could be the old HDD I'm using. SP1 took forever!!

I do know that there are guys here that use their M10000's for GPS and MP3 at the same time. So it's fine for that. I can't imagine that the OBD2 monitoring would take much CPU power. The OBD2 connection doesn't report at a very high frequency, so it wouldn't be hard to keep up with.

Razor: No prob. Just trying to give back a little. There's a lot of people here that helped me.